their hearts until the day they meet Him, because they broke what they had promised God and because they used to lie” [al-Tawbah 9:77].
When he heard what God had sent down concerning him, he brought his almsgiving to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace. The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, refused to take it from him and did not accept his charity up to his own death, may God bless him and grant him peace.
(Explaining the Refusal to Accept the Charity)
The reason he, may God bless him and grant him peace, refused to accept his charity was that God had told of him that he would meet Him as a hypocrite. If the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, took the charity from him, he would cleanse and purify him through it and invoke blessings upon him, as God commanded him. God has said that his blessing is a reassurance to the giver, in which he finds rest. All these qualities contradict hypocrisy and what the hypocrite finds before God. Because of these conditions the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, could not take the charity when he brought it after having said what he said.
After the death of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, Abū Bakr and ʿUmar likewise refused to take it from him when he brought it to them during their caliphates.
When ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān became caliph, he brought it to him, and he accepted it. His interpretation was that the amount was the right of the classes for whom God had made that portion of this particular wealth obligatory.
(Independent Judgment and the Possibility of a Particular Ruling)
This act of ʿUthmān was among the things for which he was criticized. Yet a jurist exercising independent judgment should not be criticized for a ruling to which that judgment led him, for
Notes
Translator’s note TN2311-1: The narrative links refusal to accept this particular charity to the purifying effect ascribed to the Prophet’s taking it. The later juristic question is whether that personal condition also binds subsequent collectors.
